In many situations it may be desirable to ascertain additional information related to various web-based requests. For example, it may be desirable to ascertain additional information regarding a visitor to a webpage so that advertisements may be better tailored to the visitor. As another example, it may be desirable to verify the identity of a user attempting to complete a transaction so that fraudulent purchases may be avoided.
Conventional techniques rely on usage of cookies during browsing sessions and/or user provided verification information (e.g., a “single sign-on” system) to ascertain additional information about a user. However, some of those techniques are overly invasive and present inherent privacy concerns. Also, some of these techniques are subject to fraud because the users may supply false information that is difficult to independently verify. Moreover, many requests may not be associated with cookies and/or user provided verification information. For example, requests may originate from a computing device that is identifiable only by an IP address (e.g., cookies have been disabled and the user is not “signed on”).